Wicketkeeper Brad Haddin has overseen the process of Australia's last five
wickets more than doubling the score in the first innings, when it matters

New Zealand, for example, reach the semi-finals of World Cups. England do not get nearly so far.

Anybody can stroll on to the field during a Test match provided he is carrying a drink for the batsmen. Up to four or five people indeed can do this at any one time.

And the only wicketkeeper who can win a Player of the Series award is India's Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and then it is not for his wicketkeeping but his batting and captaincy.

But if Mitchell Johnson has a bad game in Sydney – for which relief England would give much thanks – the next best candidate to be the player of this series would be Brad Haddin. Aged 36, Australia's keeper knows his own game and reads everyone else's.

Haddin has been the Transformer, the man who, in the first four Tests, has overseen the process of Australia's last five wickets more than doubling the score in the first innings, when it matters.

Table for first innings of each Test:

Country

1st Test

2nd Test

3rd Test

4th Test

Eng: first 5 wkts/last 5 wkts

87/49

117/55

190/61

202/53

Aus: first 5 wkts/last 5 wkts

100/195

257/313

143/242

112/92

So there has been very little difference between the top-order batting of England and the top-order batting of Australia. Both have been poor.

In the first innings of the four Ashes Tests, England lost their fifth wicket at 87 in Brisbane, 117 in Adelaide, 190 in Perth, and 202 in Melbourne. Thanks goodness for the improvement!

In the same sequence, Australia have lost their fifth wicket in their first innings at 100, 257, 143 and 112. That means England's top five wickets have scored a total of 596 runs against Australia's 612.

Then abracadabra! Along comes the Transformer, or Haddin the Horrible as England might prefer to call him, and he changes the shape of every Test.

Haddin comes from rural New South Wales, from Cowra, and if he had not played cricket for a living you can see him as the local schoolmaster. He is very firm beneath a kindly exterior, and he knows what works from hard experience, and stands no nonsense at the back of the class.

He has certainly stood no nonsense from Australia's lower order. From those dire positions of five-down for not many, he has engineered a recovery every time – whereas the much simpler task of Adam Gilchrist, his illustrious predecessor, was to squirt icing on cake, rapidly.

Australia's last five wickets have added 195 in their first innings in Brisbane, 313 in Adelaide (and then they declared with nine down), 242 in Perth, and 92 in Melbourne – not much but enough to make the difference in a low-scoring game once England had collapsed in their second innings.

Compare these rallies with the "contribution" of England's last five wickets in the first innings: 49, 55, 61 and 53. Very consistent – and that is about all that can be said for England's lower-order batsmen. Mitchell Johnson has swept them away.

Over each of Australia's rallies, Haddin has presided with his firm hand. Often he has played an authoritative stroke at the start of his innings, like the schoolmaster whacking a ruler on his desk to call for attention, and the bowler has disappeared over long-on for six.

Not even David Warner or Michael Clarke has radiated such authority from the moment he has taken guard. Haddin has scored 95, 118, 55 and 65 as the basis of each recovery. He has not only set a new Ashes record for most runs in a series by a keeper, but scored them when they were crucial.

And that has been only one-half of Haddin's game. In making his catches and stumpings he has gloved the ball with a certainty which England's keeper, whether Matt Prior or Jonny Bairstow, has not matched. He has kept Australia vibrant every moment in the field, and no doubt his advice as vice-captain has been sage.

So not the player of the series, because Johnson has had the impact of one of the great fast bowlers through the ages, but worthy of a special award. From the moment Haddin was into his stride on day one at the Gabba, to the remorse of Prior in particular, England have been sent to the back of his class.